


Getaway Deals

by spinnd



Series: Half and Half [2]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Burglary, First Meetings, Getaway driving, Thorin Has No Sense Of Direction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-03
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-15 08:47:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3440888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spinnd/pseuds/spinnd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You were chased by the cops, got in my car and just yelled ‘Drive!’” AU - a prompt fill</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the "meet ugly" writing prompt collection going around [Tumblr](http://spinnd.tumblr.com/post/112032007238). That I was supposed to refrain from filling, and instead could not stop filling. Sideways.

 

 

In hindsight, he probably shouldn't have left his passenger door unlocked in a public parking space, even for the five minutes waiting for his dry cleaning delivery.

 

But really. Of all places for a hijack, one really would not have expected the car park behind a supermarket to be one of them.

 

"Oh!" The man next to him exclaims, then ducks down in the seat next to him as they pass a police station. "Keep driving."

 

He stops short of telling the guy that he's small enough to not be seen in the car, would he just calm down, and please stop squiriming in the seat, it's distracting.

 

As if his racing heart and sweaty palms weren't distractions enough already.

 

Now, cruising down the main road of Brandybuck, fifteen minutes after said man jumped into his car with his jumper askew, briefcase in one hand and gun in the other, and yelled "DRIVE!", he's finally working up the courage to croak out his first words.

 

"Where are we going?"

 

The smaller man sits back with a groan beside him. "I don't know," he confesses, running a hand through his messy curled hair and looking behind at the innocuous briefcase in the backseat where he had chucked it. "Just - just get onto the highway. I'll figure out something from there."

 

He takes the westbound stream purely by chance, the left turn easier to execute at the lights, but the burglar gives a gasp when the road sign passes overhead.

 

"No! Not to Hobbiton!"

 

Thorin slams the brake as they enter peak hour traffic and narrowly avoids nosing the backend of the Westfarthing van in front of them.

 

"You said to get onto the highway!"

 

"Yes, but not this highway! We need to go eastward."

 

"You did _not_ tell me that, you said get onto the highway and that was it." He snaps back, feeling the boiling frustration familiar to any man who's been caught in rush hour standstills with a piss poor GPS. The next turn off is a mile away, according to the signs, and good luck to them getting even halfway in the next fifteen minutes.

 

The burglar gives a huffed exhale, one hand coming up to cover his eyes, the other clutching rhythmically at the handgun resting on his lap.

 

Thorin eyes the man, and his gun. He is not expert by any chance in firearms, but his burglar's grip looked all wrong on the handle and it's entirely possible that his safety catch is still in place. He entertains a fleeting thought of wrestling for the gun, and taking control of this absurd situation, and that thought is accompanied by a sudden spark of indignation at the nerve of this burglar, jumping into his car, into his _life,_ when all he's trying to do is get on with things; move on from Erebor, take care of Dis and the kids, hold down a stable job - 

 

He closes his eyes, and his hands tighten on the wheel.

 

His suit, by Mahal's bountiful balls. He hadn't even gotten his suit and his interview is tomorrow.

 

_"Shit_ ," he breathes out, barely noticing the way the burglar starts at his curse, and turns with concerned eyes to look at him.

 

"Look, I'm sorry about all this," the man begins, after a minute of heavy silence. "I had planned this better, honestly I did. But I should've known with Hamfast; his car's always breaking down, that thing's at least twelve years old, right at the last minute when he was supposed to pick me up. And the security guys had found out sooner than I thought they would - they never usually check the logs. And I panicked, and - "

 

He glares at the man, which stops the other's ramblings. "Really? Are we really doing this?"

 

"Doing what?" The man looks at him confusedly.

 

"This." He waves a hand at the sea of cars surrounding them. "Just because we're stuck in traffic, you're going to pour out your life story to me over the next half-hour?"

 

The burglar looks mildly affronted, before his brows furrow again. "Will it really take us half an hour to get to the next exit?"

 

Fueled by a rising exasperation, Thorin merely waves a hand again at the traffic around them. He takes a breath, looks out his window over to the car next to them with a mother and her sullen teenage son, then back at the burglar sitting next to him.

 

"I wouldn't."

 

Thorin frowns. "What?"

 

"I wouldn't - pour my life story out to you. I don't want to get you into any more trouble as is."

 

Thorin snorts a disbelieving laugh at this strange, strange man next to him.

 

"You're not a very good thief, are you?"

 

A small hand grips hard, but not threateniningly, on the gun. "Well, you should be so lucky that I'm at least a _nice_ thief. Manners are a hard thing to come by these days, I can tell you as much."

 

Indeed, Thorin thinks as their car inches forward. "You don't look much like a burglar. What exactly did you steal?"

 

"Thought we weren't doing the life stories," the man snarks.

 

"I would furnish you with mine in exchange, but I doubt it's as interesting."

 

"Hmm." His burglar actually looks to seriously consider the trade. "Better make it good then. Because mine's a whopper."

  


	2. Chapter 2

 

"Smaug?" Thorin exclaims. " _The_ Smaug? Sir singlehandedly-revived-Uruloki-Corporations Draco Smaug?"

 

"Yes."

 

"What on earth possessed you to?" Thorin, in his astonishment, almost doesn't see the bike cut dangerously in front of him, until a smaller hand shoots out to grab his wheel. He slams the brake and the horn together.

 

"I'm an auditor. It's my  _job_ to check his accounts." The man lets go of the steering and settles back into the seat. "And I tried all the standard ways, legal ways, to highlight the mistakes in the numbers, believe you me. When people stop listening, though... when they start trying to hide things and shut you up, well, I had to find other ways of getting the news out. It's all there, all the disks. In my briefcase. I'm meeting a friend who will keep them safe, keep me safe, until these things can be brought out into the open."

 

Thorin feels a grin starting, in spite of himself. "So. You really aren't a burglar then."

 

The man's eyes narrow, but there is a flash of amusement in them. "First impressions count for everything, do they? What are you, then? Those are some pretty extensive burns on your hands. Some kind of metalwork or mining?"

 

Thorin freezes, and he can feel the man beside him do the same.

 

"Sorry," he begins, "did I -"

 

"No." Thorin shakes his head, swallowing thickly and trying for a smile. "No, it's okay. You're close. Worked for my grandfather's chemical plant, as site supervisor some years ago. Up the North East."

 

"Explains the accent. But you're here now? Thought you Northerners didn't like it much down here in Eriador. Too sunny, I've heard them say."

 

"My sister's here, with her kids." He offers as first explanation. "And - things didn't quite work out at the plant. Some stuff happened, it got shut down."

 

He doesn't have to wait long for the man to put two and two together.

 

"Oh." He breathes. "Oh. As in, Durin Industries. The one with the fire, that was in the news - "

 

"Yes."

 

They fall silent as the quarter-mile sign comes into view.

 

"They reported several deaths in that accident." The man ventures, carefully.

 

Thorin nods. "Twenty in total."

 

The man doesn't push any further.

 

The last quarter mile passes smoothly with an ease in traffic and Thorin pulls out of the snarl into a clear road that winds a circular route, stopping finally at the lights.

 

"We make quite a pair, don't we?" His burglar says, as they watch the red light with the resigned patience of all city travelers. Thorin bites his tongue to stop himself from commenting that he's hardly aware a half hour road trip as, essentially, abducter and hostage, made them anything close to  _a pair._

 

The U-turn is two lights, both which they hit red, but it is at the second stop that a black car cuts in suddenly at the light, pulling up with tinted windscreens, engine humming a thrumming bass they could feel through their chassis.

 

He glances at his burglar, who glances back.

 

_Surely not -_

 

Their seatbelts yank them back as another car rear ends his sedan, sending its front into the black car. The gun goes flying somewhere down to the floor, and the wheel leaves a sharp ache where the logo had slammed into his sternum.

 

_Oh. Hell_.

 

He's just managed to extricate himself from his seatbelt when the doors yank open and he is dragged out by his collar. Over the blood pounding in his ears, he hears a familiar voice shouting, even as a gloved hand wraps around his throat.

 

"Don't! Don't hurt him, he's got nothing to do with this!"

 

The owner of the gloved hand, a towering skinhead with ice for eyes, smiles coldly.

 

"You should have thought about that before you jumped into his car, Mister Baggins."

 

A blade appears in the other's hand, and Thorin claws desperately at the iron grip around his neck.

 

There is a flash of pain along his cheek the same time a gun retort goes off at a distance, and the fingers slide away from his throat, He staggers, released. Then collapses to the tarmac in a dead faint.

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

"Hey, hey. Can you hear me?" He comes to at the repeated words, feeling a light pat tap insistently on his cheek.

 

"Leave him be, Bilbo. He'll come around when he's ready."

 

He squints up at the familiar face, now with a slightly bruised temple, and raises his eyes further to what looks like the inside of the roof of his car. The gentle rocking of a moving vehicle registers first, shortly followed by the feel of cushioned leather and his head pillowed on a lap. 

 

"Oh," his burglar -  _Bilbo, his name is Bilbo_  - places a hand on his chest. "There you are."

 

Thorin blinks, and frowns. "Who's driving my car?"

 

"Some call me Grey," a cheery voice sounds from the driver's seat, and a tall grey-haired man peers around to give a handwave amidst the speeding traffic around them. "But others say that's a little pretentious."

 

"A little very pretentious," Bilbo supplies drily, shifting to help Thorin sit up in his backseat. "Are you feeling all right?"

 

As all right as he would ever after nearly having his throat slit. "Yes. Where - where are you taking us?"

 

The giant advert that flashes by in the next second more than readily answers his question.

 

<<THE LAST HOMELY HOUSE - A WORLD HERITAGE SITE>>

 

"We're in Rivendell?"

 

Bilbo shrugs. "You were out for quite a bit. Gandalf - that, that's Gandalf, by the way - found us just in time. He and I kind of assumed it would be better for us to ditch his bike and take your car. And you along with it, of course. We had to patch you up a bit."

 

He feels along his cheek, the memory of cold metal and hot blood lingering on his skin, and his fingers touch a crudely taped bandage over the wound. He grits his teeth at the memory.

 

"What- happened to those men?" 

 

"I, well..." Bilbo makes a vague gesture, but the marked queasiness in his expression tells Thorin all he needs to know. Most probably to do with the gunshot he had heard. And the faint rust-coloured spatter now coating Bilbo's corduroys. 

 

"They'll live," Gandalf intoned from the front. "And at least your friend didn't get hit by friendly fire."

 

"That he didn't," Bilbo brightens, and turns to Thorin with a reassuring smile.

 

This day is getting more and more absurd by the minute. 

 

"Look," he says, clutching at the seat as Gandalf takes the turn-off in fifth gear, "just drop me off somewhere. You can take the car, I don't care." 

 

He'll catch a cab back to Ered Luin, never mind whatever exorbitant rate that would cost. He just wants out. Now. 

 

Gandalf catches his gaze in the rear-view mirror. 

 

"You're Thorin Durin," he says, and Thorin feels a jolt of shock straighten his spine. "Thror Durin's grandson."

 

"I am." The assertion wavers on uncertainty. "How did you know?"

 

"Bilbo was the one who worked it out, smart lad." Gandalf praises, and Bilbo scowls, mouthing an ' _he's always like this'_ out of Gandalf's eye line. "From your little tete-a-tete in the car earlier. Not that he quite expected to run into someone from such a famous family when he had to use you as his makeshift getaway driver, did you, my lad?"

 

"I don't -that's not my name anymore." Thorin Eichenschild corrects. It had taken a year of legal wrangling to change their names, but it had been worth it. For the boys.

 

"No, I suppose not. Not after Erebor. Very sad affair, that gas leak at your grandfather's chemical plant. A most unfortunate  _accident._ "

 

And that tone, that voice, makes Thorin sit up, forward, leaning against the front passenger seat as memories of his father surface in his mind; Thrain, weak and dying in the Burns Unit, but with still a small spark of fury in his eyes as he had gripped Thorin's hand and whispered about the day of the fire. About the  _accident._

 

_'It was no accident, Thorin!"_

 

"Thorin?" Bilbo says, softly.

 

"It was no accident." Thorin hears himself murmur.

 

Gandalf pulls into a Mithril petrol station, and stops by a beat-up SUV. The older man turns around, fixing Thorin with a stare that almost has him flinching back. But he keeps the gaze, despite the hot flush that has started up his neck at the scrutiny.

 

After several long seconds, wherein even Bilbo had stopped squirming and merely watched them both, Gandalf breaks his stare. 

 

"Good." He declares. "Good. Come with me." 

 

"What?" Thorin scrambles out the car after the  _crazy old man,_ Bilbo immediately following suit with the briefcase clutched tightly to him _._ "Come with you? Come with you - where?"

 

Gandalf's remote unlocked the SUV with two sharp beeps. 

 

"If you really want to find out what happened that day, Thorin, what really happened to your grandfather's company after it burned down with that plant, I suggest you stop with the questions for now, and get in."

 

Then, with a fond touch to Bilbo's shoulder: "All will hopefully be revealed in due course. Once Ori gets that data off those disks of yours, Bilbo Baggins. Come - the others are waiting back at The Hole in the Ground. I'm told there's the rabbit stew special on tonight."

 

Bilbo turns to him with a smile as they clamber into the backseat strewn with snack wrappers. 

 

"Welcome to The Company."

 

As the car starts up, Thorin rests his head back on the slightly mildewy headrest. 

 

_And he was going to explain this to his sister - how?_


End file.
